Romney’s Tax Rate Is About the Same As Congress’s Approval Rating

During a campaign stop in Florence, SC Tuesday, fresh off yet another night of news articles called “Focus Is On Romney at ______ Debate,” Mitt Romney told reporters that he believes his current tax rate is 15 percent. Yeah, that’s right, lower than what most middle class Americans pay annually and two percent higher than the current record-low approval rating of Congress. The reason? Why, vulture capitalism, of course: most of Romney’s income is from his investments in the smelly carcasses of former companies. As he’s proudly told reporters, he’s been “unemployed” since he left the Massachusetts governor’s office in 2007, meaning all of his income is coming from ancient investments, which is typically part of the deal when you are paid to “turn around” a company.

A legal loophole means that Romney was once taxed at a high/normal rate for the fees he charged at Bain Capital, but a large part of his earnings from his career there are from his investments in the companies, i.e. “carried interest,” which are taxed as if they are capital gains. It’s something that Democrats in recent years have tried to get rid of several times. Explains The Atlantic:

Managers of private equity firms like Romney are often paid under an arrangement in which they receive both a set fee for their management, as well as a share of the profits that the firm makes for investors. While their management fees are taxed at normal income tax rates, the share of investor gains that go to a private equity manager (called “carried interest”) are treated as capital gains, and thus taxed at a top rate of 15 percent.

Of course, under the candidate’s tax plan, nothing about this lovely arrangement would likely change. Romney and many other Republicans believe that a lower capital gains tax stimulates the economy by encouraging investment. But who exactly is benefiting from Romney’s gains? Oh, that unemployed volunteer that he threw some money at the other day? The Democratic argument tends to be: people like Romney shouldn’t make absurd profits from “managing someone else’s money” rather than actually taking risks.

But Romney would peg himself as a big risk-taker. Someone who plays “We Are The Champions” at a campaign rally despite the fact that he hasn’t even become champion of anything yet. And lest we forget the worst part of the “corporations are people” comment is really what came after it:

It's alleged that once in practice he threw a tight spiral. It was still incomplete, but as the story goes, looked really fucking professional.

MinAgain

The politically aware segment of the US population?

memzilla

The rotting remains of Ronald Reagan?

nounverb911

Romney's blood/alcohol level when he killed his bosses wife in France?

MissTaken

The alcohol content of the wine case I bought this weekend?

BarackMyWorld

The approval rating of the average Republican governor?

Warpde

Mittens erections (with the Viagra)

Lionel[redacted]Esq

The amount of Perry's brain that actually works?

GeorgiaBurning

Human origin content of Romney's DNA?

GOPCrusher

The number of Mississippi prisoners that Haley Barbour pardoned?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Um … me?

Tundra Grifter

Ole Newt's standing in the polls?

freakishlywrong

"Vote for Me, I'll lower my tax rate"

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

That's the best evah description of RMONEY's platform.

Barb

Vultures are people too, my friend.

not that Dewey

Vultures pee on themselves to prevent scraps of carrion from causing infections. Also, "New World vultures have the ability to use their corrosive vomit as a defensive projectile when threatened. "

I don't see a single, inaccurate description of Mitt Romney anywhere in that whole article.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Vultures are *essential* to their systems' ecology. The same *cannot* be said of Mittens. I'm surprised you didn't notice that enormous and highly pertinent difference between the two.

not that Dewey

Point well-taken. Nature knows no wastefulness, unlike modern capitalism.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

OTOH, I bet RMONEY pees on himself to stop Teh Poorz from clinging to his pant-legs when begging for crumbs off his table. Did you hear that the guy who founded Pinkberry just got arrested for beating up some homeless dude who was so impertinent as to forget his place and offer him some kind of words? They've gone from breaking waiters' fingers to beating us up for daring to address them. I call for pitchforks and torches!

not that Dewey

Not pinkberry! They had that incredibly cute American Express Plum commercial, where the idiot-voiced narrator with a stuffy nose wondered "We wonder what they'll do with it?"

Well, now we know. They'll use it to post bail.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

What was it Emo Philips used to say? "Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the straps."

not that Dewey

Ha ha.

“I’m not a fatalist, but even if I were, what could I do about it?”

SorosBot

What about the leeches, are they people too?

http://www.storycorner.us/ JustPixelz

Let's ask Newt. I sense a (another!) standing ovation in someone's future. After all "leech" and "liberal" sound the same when you mouth it through a dog whistle.

http://www.vinoverve.com Maman

Hyenas too?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Scavengers are essential to their systems' ecology. Without scavengers, we would soon be (ew) awash in the remains of our dead.

That said, the perpetual existential dread a prey animal lives in must be nice to let go of as one sinks deeper into the liquid vortex of death.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

And I thought we were friends!

widestanceshakedown

?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

I keed, I keed. No, wait, that didn't come out right either.

So, how YOU doin?

widestanceshakedown

Better now that I know you had keeded!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

(Hugs the cutie) Something you never need to worry about, dood. How's your sweetie doing? All better and recovered from that nasty bout of illness?

widestanceshakedown

Oh, hells yeah. Stronger than dirt, that man.

How's the leg?

(by the way, how far into infinity do these reply skews go, until only one character per window fits?)

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

So good to hear that. That was a scary time, for you.

Leg's holding up. The PT exercise leaves me feeling weak as a kitten and exhausted. Apparently, it takes much more time to build up muscle than to break it down, who knew?

Pretty damn far. SorosBot and pdog and I broke it over the weekend, but I forget which post that was. ntDewey might have helped, too.

widestanceshakedown

Definitely the scariest time ever, and I've been through some scare in my day.

Very glad to hear PT is helping (even as it exhausts).

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Bleh. I just want to be in the garden throwing nuts at the fucking squirrels. We had unseasonably warm weather towards the end of the year and my tomatoes FINALLY fucking fruited, and of course, the squirrels are hungry now that everything ELSE is gone so the li'l bastids are eating my tomatoes.

But I'm too tired to do more than read a little and whine over here. Sigh.

Guppy

Why didn't you use it to brew up some "iced tea shocker?"

GOPCrusher

Should have taught it to row a boat.

Biff

See? Job creationism!

Texan_Bulldog

"Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people."

If by 'people', he means stockholders, board members, C-level executives, lobbyists and his PAC, then he's absolutely correct!

Tundra Grifter

TB:

One of my favorite right wing nutz' Talking Points is "Corporations don't pay taxes – they just pass the increase along to their customers."

I've read a bit about economics, and this is the only example I can find of the Infinately Eleastic Price. It means that sellers can just raise prices at will and all customers will just follow along.

The gas bags, of course, never explain why the corporations wouldn't have already raised those prices – why would they wait for taxes to go up?

paris biltong

I don't want to get all technical about it, but what you're talking about, IMO, is highly inelastic demand, where the same quantity is bought regardless of the price (the old example is salt). It is true that demand (as well as supply, where competition is limited) for some products is fairly inelastic, so sellers can sometimes increase prices pretty much at will, but only up to a certain point, beyond which consumers take up arms and heads begin to roll.

Tundra Grifter

pb:

Perhaps I didn't make my case as well as I should have. There are elastic and inelastic prices – just as demand ranges from one end to the other.

I simply can not accept an across-the-board statement that all prices are perfectly elastic. Corporations do pay taxes – they come out of cash flow.

Profit, as my Daddy used to say, is simply an accounting opinion.

Biel_ze_Bubba

"why would they wait for taxes to go up?"

You answered your own question: prices are not perfectly elastic. While corporate taxes aren't exactly a "cost of doing business" (they apply to profits, not revenue), they are in part passed on to the customer. And, in part, taken off of the bottom line. If dividends are paid, the 1% might feel the pain, but for the most part it's the customers who take the hit. Along with the people who might have gotten a job (or a raise) if the company had shown more profit. Corp. taxes are dumb — they're regressive, and they disadvantage US exports — but they're an easy sell for politicans.

The conservatards' Big Lie is that CEOs and bazillionaires are "job creators." Companies create jobs out of their profits, not out of the salaries of their executives. In reality, if they paid the big cheese a few million dollars less, they could hire dozens more workers. How is it possible that nobody bothers to point this out?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Ah, Biely, that fine Italianate mind needs to be working on OUR side, thinking up ways for the forces of good to triumph.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Sticking pitchforks into the bad guys doesn't help?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

It certainly helps, you sly old devil, but then with the left hand thou raiseth up armies in the north, and all that, old chap. I mean, you're only pitchforking 'em because you tempted them to sin in the first place, is this not so?

Biel_ze_Bubba

How else am I going to know who to fork up?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Biely, Biely, Biely, the Jesuits taught you well. Indeed. (I presume it was the Jesuits. You know the old joke.)

Biel_ze_Bubba

You know it was.

tessiee

"if they paid the big cheese a few million dollars less, they could hire dozens more workers. How is it possible that nobody bothers to point this out?"

On the rare occasions where somebody does point it out, it's labeled class war and/or dismissed with some reflexive cries of "Jobs!" or "Tax and spend!" or "Sociailsm", and then (to borrow from [I think] chicicovich), it's understood that the issue is settled.

MzNicky

Romney's been unemployed since 2007, huh? Hey, guess what! So have I! Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship? (HA HA HA no.)

Barb

What did you do before you became unemployed?

MzNicky

Magazine editor, freelance writer, journalism professor, brief stint in PR — you know, the usual stuff you do when you get useless liberal arts degrees.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Here's my suggestion (and feel free to tell me to stick it up my ass): Write Mittens and tell him of your plight. After all, didn't he give that OTHER unemployed woman $60 whole buckeroonies? Everybody's hurting these days, everybody but Mittens and his ilk. If enough of us write to this bozo moron requesting help, do you think (it's possible!) that it will finally dawn on him that We Have A Problem Houston?

MzNicky

Actually — funny story, but true! — I was offered a job last week. I start this Thursday (my birthday!), herniated disc and all! This is the craziest week of my life so far this year! So yeah, Mitt can stick it up HIS ass!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Well, YAY! That is SO fucking great! I'm really happy for you. The last layoff just left me feeling like, screw this, at my age, I'm not gonna get rehired anyway. This makes me feel so much better. Congratulations! Best of luck, and hope the new job makes you happy and whadya wanna bet your neck heals right up real fast? True story: I had severe pain in my neck right before the O-man won the election. It disappeared right after. I think I had been going to a chiropractor, a masseuse, a Pilates instructor, and PT for a year for it without success. Let's hope!

ETA: Wot a birfday present! Happy birthday.

MzNicky

Thanks MittBorg! Listen, if I can get a cool job like this one at MY age (I'll be 59 for cryin' out loud), after years of sitting around the house on my butt doing not much more than the laundry and annoying people on blogs, there's hope for all the olds. So — yay, money, benefits and stuff! But boo, less time to hone my smart-ass skills on le Wonkette and taunt the Tea-tard morons on my local news site. Oh well.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

True. Thanks for those encouraging words. I might print them out and beat friends about the heads and shoulders wot need encouragement. You're not gonna TOTES desert us though, right? You'll still visit on nights and weekends and maybe even the occasional boring workday?

MzNicky

That's the plan. I'll still need my Wonkette!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

You do dat. I'll be keeping an eye out for ya. Best of luck with the new job!

tessiee

At one of my job interviews, the interviewer raised her eyebrows and said, in a voice of appalled disbelief, "You've been temping for THREE YEARS??" I don't know whether she was testing me to see how I responded to off-the-wall questions, or whether she was just a bitch, or what, but I pretended to be cheerful and said, "Oh, yeah! They're great to work for!", just as though there weren't plenty of people who have been unemployed for three years.

PS. What a bitch.

MzNicky

Perhaps she just couldn't believe that someone with your skills and experience etc. was still "just a temp"? Eh. I agree, what a bitch.

Did you get the job?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Wow. Nasty bitch indeed. Let's hope it was because her hemorrhoids were keeping her up of nights. Way back when, some 30 years ago, I worked for a small software company that had almost all tech staff with the exception of two young women who answered the phone and that kinda stuff. The MD was a woman who used to be a schoolteacher or principal or something. Nasty bitch does not begin to describe the woman. Curiously, she was only nasty to women. She was really nice to the men, especially the young, single men.

Weapons-grade weirdness, also.

What is it with certain women, that they hate women so much?

http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/ donner_froh

The Democratic argument tends to be: people like Romney shouldn’t make absurd profits from “managingstealing someone else’s money”

A trifling difference, hardly worth mentioning.

Tundra Grifter

The employees of companies "financed" by Bane often had pensions or other retirement accounts.

The money is still there. It's just that now the payments are being sent to Mittens and his former co-workers.

prommie

Makes the Tundra Grifter look like a piker, grifting for chump change, and paying the highest rates on her grift.

Tundra Grifter

prommie:

Do you confuse me with Lou Sarah?

Who pays income taxes on "gifts?"

NYNYNYjr

Is that true? Like the pensions are canceled and the company closes and the money keeps going to him? What about the creditors?

Tundra Grifter

NY x 3 Jr.:

I described the result. I'm sure I skipped a few steps in the overall process.

So much financial engineering consists of building in enough inefficiencies to create a profit for the parties designing the transaction. Often there is no real underlying economic benefit – other than to the investment house doing the deal, of course.

Bane Capital took huge fees for a variety of deals. Some, I'm sure, involved accepting risk – like venture funding Staples, for example. Other deals, in my personal opinion, amounted to little more than legal plundering of existing assets.

http://wonkette.com TanzbodenKoenig

Are they even trying to win or is Obama trolling the GOP with a bunch of whack jobs he paid to run as some kind of hypermodern absurdist political theatre

Geminisunmars

That would make more sense to me.

RavenRant

After their repeated purges of anyone vaguely connected to reality, who do they have left?

All their secret pinup boys and girls (Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Palin, Bachmann,) implode pitifully when they step out of the wingnut bubble.

What top tier candidate could they have run? Boehner? Beck? *snort*

chicken_thief

Time to roll out Chris Christie!!!! Ya, I do mean literally.

RavenRant

That implosion is going require a Superfund level hazmat response.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

They tried. Takes a lot more manpower than they got to roll out THAT old barrel.

Biff

All we'd have to do is run Mr. Creosote on infinite loop with Christie's name on it. Instant toast.

tessiee

"After their repeated purges of anyone vaguely connected to reality, who do they have left?

All their secret pinup boys and girls (Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Tim Pawlenty, Palin, Bachmann,) implode pitifully when they step out of the wingnut bubble."

That's because they're so fixated on the bible cranks and the corporate 1% that they refuse to run anyone with half a brain and/or anywhere to the left of Attila the Hun. Say what you will about Gramps McCain, he was stuck with the "choice" of running with the loony bitch they picked out for his VP, or not running at all. Anybody sane enough to get elected would never get past their vetting process. It's kind of a neat little karmic wheel, actually.

RavenRant

I really hope that Obama soundly thumps whoever gets the nomination. I would like to see these people relegated to the fringe party they deserve to be.

But after 2010, my confidence in the sanity of the electorate has been a bit shaky.

Good news: The Scott Walker recall is going like gangbusters. Some of the American public have figured out that it's their survival at stake.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

I like this theory.

tessiee

"Are they even trying to win"

And get stuck with cleaning up the mess that they created? pfffftt! That crowd isn't big on facing the consequences of their actions.

http://wonkette.com Chillwillard

"Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people"

…in motherfuckin' China.

DahBoner

Shi shi!…

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Bu shi, le.

http://wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

"Mostly everything corporations earn ultimately goes to really really really rich people and not the suckers who actually sweat and bleed for it."

Corrected

DrOzarkZ.Hellbender

"[Loopholes in the tax code] sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary and that’s crazy. Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver?”

–Ronald "Class Warfare" Reagan

Geminisunmars

Wait a minute…

chicken_thief

Only the image of Raygun is popular with the right – his politics were to the left of just about every Prez since.

tessiee

"Do you think the millionaire ought to pay more in taxes than the bus driver?”

–Ronald "Class Warfare" Reagan

*I* think so, but I find it very hard to believe that *Raygun* thought so… or actually, that Raygun thought.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Now now, that's still higher than what Bain Capital pays.

BaldarTFlagass

So, what, he's going for the sympathy vote?

ttommyunger

Realizing a douche like Mitt has an actual shot at the Presidency makes me glad I'm in the final chapter of my life.

Raised three wonderful kids, got to see them started in life and their beautiful kids, what's to complain?

ttommyunger

No complaints here, just sayin….

GOPCrusher

I say the same thing about the entire current crop of Republiklan poo-flingers. People look at me like I'm mad when I explain to them what labor-management relations were like before the Reagan Depression. And to think, people used to invest money in companies for the express purpose of seeing the company thrive, earn a profit, and pay out dividends.

ttommyunger

Sad, but true.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Don't say that, ttommy! The world would be a darker place without you (though it wouldn't chance much without Mitt).

Hey, I got a idee — how 'bout we make a deal with the Grim Reaper, RMONEY's remaining days on the planet exchanged for yours? The rest of us will breathe a little easier (ok, maybe his family will miss him), and the world will be a better place.

RavenRant

The family pets most likely will not miss him.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Poor Seamus has long since gone to his reward, I'm sure, and somehow I don't see Bishop Willard and Ann as pet-loving types. Too uptight.

ttommyunger

Sounds good to me, but who's the broker?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Biel_ze_Bubba might be a good candidate.

ttommyunger

I wus afeard of that.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Just don't sign anything without a lawyer, and you'll be fine. I think.

ttommyunger

Lawyer? I don' need no stinkin' lawyer! ;)

Dashboard_Jesus

I hear ya tt, wish I was as *old* as you but I've got at least 15 years left til 'retirement' (hah, who am I kidding!) and yet I am sooo glad NOT to be a 20-30 something right now…at least my college education was cheap and my humble little home is paid for and I STILL have a job (so far!) And at this point I'm REALLY happy I don't have any kids cuz I'd hate to have to explain to them why we left such a fucked up world to them…otherwise I'm feeling pretty good about the 'golden years'! :)

BS4Dummies

MittBot, show us your magic underwear, I mean tax returns.

GOPCrusher

I think he hopes that by April,all the other Republiklans will have dropped out of the race and can't use them against him. If the Democrats say anything, it will just be another example of class warfare.

http://facethesuncastnoshadow.wordpress.com/ Mumbletypeg

I used to think this stooge would make a good manneq-model for "Just For Men." Only now I see from this jack-of-all-entitlements what it should've been all along: same thing minus one letter, "Just for Me."

DahBoner

GOP Philosophy in a Nutshell :

MINE! MINE! MINE! IT'S ALL FUCKING MINE!!!!!!

tessiee

Daffy Duck libel!!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

SO upfisted. I'd give you a gold star for that if I had one, but C_R_Eature appears to have a monopoly on gold stars.

SorosBot

But I thought he was a job creator! He's creating jobs by, um, making obscene amounts of money for no work based of the labor of underpaid employees of the firms he's invested in.

DahBoner

But think of all the new products Bain Capital has created that has made peopleq's lives bqetterq!1

Like uh………money for Mitt Romney?

chicken_thief

He did have that crew level and rebuild his beach house in CA. Hell, that's gotta be a couple dozen jobs right there. Couple weeks for plumbers, couple weeks for electricians, few months for carpenters. Look at Mitt go!!!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Wonder if he's got any undocumented workers on his property? Probly not, now that he's running for office, for Pete's sake, right?

RavenRant

Newt's been creating jobs for Tiffany's gift-wrappers.

paris biltong

So in other words, Mitt is just a regular taxpaying guy: summers in Rangoon, luge lessons and all.

jus_wonderin

"Shhh. Sh. Shhhh. Nope. Shh…………….."

HateMachine

You know, I really could see Mittens making meat helmets, while Papa Romney stands nearby, sneering at a chestnut and demanding it get a job.

paris biltong

I can also see a shrunken Jon Huntsman as Mini Mitt.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

That was surreal.

tessiee

"making meat helmets"

If this is a euphemism for whacking off, it's new to me.

JackDempsey1

15%, eh?
So the feds are getting the same rate as Flo down at the diner?
Sounds about right.
Is Flo still driving home in that gas-guzzling MRAP?

prommie

I am amazed he has been trying to play this down, he should be screeching and screaming at the injustice that he even has to pay 15%. Seriously, the Greed Party has no problem with this at all, the millions of venomous, obese, gullible, pig-fucking imbeciles are actually going to feel sorry for him, outraged at the fact that he has to pay this much. He could even steal the Ron Paul supporters, the ones who claim, variously, that any taxes, all taxes, are either theft or slavery.

SorosBot

I have heard some of them actually compare taxes to slavery, which has got to be one of the most offensive comparisons I've ever heard.

Those are the same dumbass motherfuckers who get their manties in a giant wad when anybody compares the GAY struggle for human/civil rights with slavery.

tessiee

Anything that keeps them from forcing other people to do what they tell them = slavery.

TeaNuts

Could not have said it better, seriously, what are those bible thumping mush heads thinking. Mind you my expectation for a second Obama term are minimal, but better than Republican disdain and cronyism!

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Say what you will about Pres. O, but compared to this stack of stooges? He is head and shoulders, far and away, the better choice.

MrFizzy

It's an insult to swine Americans everywhere that you think we would allow a mormon doofus like Mittens to fuck us. For shame.

prommie

Pig-rapers, then. Of course you are right, I am sorry for suggesting they engage in consensual sex with pigs.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Like a pig would stoop so low.

tessiee

"outraged at the fact that he has to pay this much … who claim, variously, that any taxes, all taxes, are either theft or slavery"

What do you figure is the segment of this population that relies on some form of government assistance — medicare, medicaid, food stamps, disability, AFDC, publicly funded emergency rooms, etc. etc. — 80%? 90%? 99.9%?

Wanna bet that if anyone suggested taking away their freebies, that would be "slavery" too?

RavenRant

And even if they don't 'rely' on government funds, they will grab whatever portion they can get their grubby paws on.

MrFizzy

Brings to mind an oft-screamed comment by an old basketball coach of mine: "Dickless Wonder!"

Mort_Sinclair

Now that the nation is getting a decent dose of Mittens, there may be some of you who now truly get it. We sentient folks who had to live in Massachusetts during his gubernatorial years deserve a little TLC, a group hug, as it were, for having endured that idiot for years. As a matter of fact, many of us suffer from a strain of resultant PTSD, and now that we see his robotic excellency on TV every. freaking. day., attempting to pass his lying, self-serving bullshit off to the rest of the nation–and apparently succeeding–the flashbacks are baaaaad. Really baaaaaad. Hold me.

DahBoner

Yeah, that Let's let a Republican Mormon be govenor because the Democrat party in Massachusetts is So Corrupt really has worked out so well…

Somehow, the thought of surviving the Mittbot is not as warm and fuzzy as I'd like it to be.

Joshua Norton

he’s proudly told reporters, he’s been “unemployed” since he left the Massachusetts governor’s office

Mainly because in the real world, he's pretty much unemployable. He'd be lucky to be playing a tambourine for spare change by a subway entrance.

DahBoner

He takes in sewing repairs to a Magic Underwear to get by…

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

No snark here, why do you say that? He's got a Harvard MBA and a JD from Harvard Law School. I would have thought that made him highly employable, at least in corporate Amurka.

Biff

Lots of those jerks out of work, where they should be.

Mort_Sinclair

Not when you're on the spectrum, as we in the education biz say. Mittens, you see, has a touch o' the Asperger's, making him a terrible interview and a wholly avoidable co-worker. Without innate intelligence or cleverness, what you got there is a rich & smiley robot lacking much in the way of social brains. Deadly combo, that.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Thank you. From my years in Corporate America, I can tell you that he's the *type* of candidate upper management simply lerves. Of course, inevitably, that's the type of character that gets cashiered for incompetence some months, or years (if you're unlucky) down the line, but god knows I've worked with a shitload of them in my life.

Goonemeritus

Well obviously Mitt had taxable earnings between $8,500 and $34,500 (the allowed earnings for a 15% tax bracket). He truly is one of, God bless you Mitt it’s nice to see true representative government for a change. Boy he must be very thrifty to have saved up for 12 houses with that kind of income.

An_Outhouse

99% LIBEL!!1!

DahBoner

His entire family lives in the basement of his son's house in New Hamphire.

Plus, all that change he takes from the collection plate every Sunday….

x111e7thst

15% is still too high. The job creators can't get really serious about creating till that rate has dropped by half. Because China.

DahBoner

Where over half of the population is illiterate and makes $300 a year?

x111e7thst

Something for us to aspire to.

chicken_thief

And for the children.

Biel_ze_Bubba

"Turn around" = "Rotate 90˚ and bury."

Chichikovovich

Or perhaps "Turn around" is the first in a series of commands issued to the company's workers. The next is "bend over"….

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Followed by "Drop trou," "Grab your ankles," "Take a deep breath," … but we all know this story.

Or Everything people earn ultimately goes to corporations. It's all the same.

tessiee

Or, you know, all the productivity that people create by working gets skimmed off by the 1% who did nothing, so that the people who actually created the wealth don't benefit from it at all.

Biel_ze_Bubba

Things could be worse … we could employ him.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Heaven … er, or whatever … forfend.

Steverino247

Can we please stop using terms like "legal loophole" as if the rules that allow this bullshit were there accidentally? Swiss cheese is supposed to have holes in it. The IRS codes are supposed to have holes, too. They are put there by assholes like Mitt Romney.

DahBoner

You're saying these loopholes were intentional, often written by industry themselves and inserted into bills at the last minute, with no scrutiny, by assholes like Mitt?

Steverino247

Yes. Yes I am.

savethispatient

Little known fact: assholes like Mitt Romney also put the holes in Swiss cheese.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Mittens has the six-gazillion-dollar annual contract for putting the holes in Swiss cheese. Not many people know that.

An_Outhouse

Congress has a 13% approval rating? Does it go up when they're on vacation or are they giving blow jobs to the respondents?

http://wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

It's like Mittens really doesn't want to be Preznit.

DahBoner

Look over there, while we quietly take over the Senate, so we can finish the Destruction of America….

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Mittens wants it so bad, he can taste it. He's given up all for it. His honour (whatever he had), money, credibility, time, energy … it's all he's worked for for at least 12 years now.

It's going to be really, really, really sweet if he loses. I can taste the bitter tears already.

tessiee

"It's like Mittens really doesn't want to be Preznit"

The man's got a quarter of a billion dollars; ANY job would be a step down.

http://ifthethunderdontgetya.blogspot.com/ ifthethunderdontgetya

Romney and many other Republicans believe that a lower capital gains tax stimulates the economy by encouraging investment.

Higher tax rates encorage investing in America, since said investments would be 100% tax-deductable…

Baconzgood

15%? I won't even tell you what Baconz pays and I would count myself as pretty…. well…not not well off.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Welfy. That's the word you're looking for.

When employed, I paid about 37% of my income in taxes. I'm feeling rather annoyed, now.

MissTaken

I did my taxes yesterday (in between loads of laundry and masturbating) and my real federal tax rate – the percentage that is actually going to the IRS from my gross income after all exemptions and deductions – is 19%. Fuck you, Mitt Romney, fuck you.

And the worst part is this is normal for the super-rich; and yet they still whine and claim that they're being taxed too much, and some Republicans want to eliminate capital gains taxes altogether (along with inheritance taxes). Fuck them all.

BaldarTFlagass

Last year I was at 28%. I think I'm gonna stock up on Tide and Jergen's Lotion before I prepare my taxes this year.

MissTaken

I'm in the 28% bracket, too. But being the good CPA I am I take every freaking deduction available. And "doing laundry" makes finding those deductions a much more creative and fun process.

Well, he did claim to create 100,000 jobs while working at Bain Capital.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

He's down to 6,000 jobs now.

prommie

I look at Mitt and all I can think of is "Gap protection, undercoating, and fabricguard."

jus_wonderin

….at an extra charge, of course. I bet he depreciates wildly when driven off the lot.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

I'd like to drive him off the stage. With a cat o'nine tails.

Biel_ze_Bubba

"Gap protection, undercoating, and fabricguard."

Wait … you've seen the magic underwear?

Serolf_Divad

Headlines like this are why Wonkette remains one of my favorite websites.

BlueStateLibel

I am going to be so happy on the night of the first Tuesday in November when this cheat and swindler is going to have concede to the blah President. Then he can go home and fondle his monies, but he'll never, ever be president of the United States.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez

http://loljazzcatz.blogspot.com/ Chet Kincaid

The Democratic argument tends to be: people like Romney shouldn’t make absurd profits from “managing someone else’s money” rather than actually taking risks.

Is this accurate? Isn't the argument that profits should be taxed at a higher/more fair rate? There's a big difference. If somebody with money chooses to pay their manager in profits as well as fees, what is wrong with that?

Mariecohn

Mr Kincaid, you are absolutely right. We don't begrudge the rich their earnings, pvovided they're not exploitative, as much as we do insist that they pay their fair share, in the most progressive environment possible. I come from France where this is the way things are done, and have been done for hundreds of years.

BarackMyWorld

I'm glad he's using that extra money to create jobs and not do something foolish, like say run for president.

http://www.storycorner.us/ JustPixelz

Mitt likes to say "to create jobs it helps to have had a job". People with jobs that pay a living wage also pay a higher tax rate. "To understand 99%, it helps to to have spend at least one minute living like them."

And from the rhetoric, I see no one in the Repubican party has had a family member diagnosed with cancer so their survival may depend on health insurance that could disappear at the whim of a venture capitalist who gets better ROI if benefits are cut or staff is laid off. With a pre-existing condition and without "Obamacare", that's not a pink slip Mitt, it's a death sentence.

chicken_thief

The ongoing theme of all the Republican debates is how many jerbs they've created – Mittens with his 100k, Newt taking full credit for the best of the Raygun and Slick Willie years, Rick the Flaming Cowboy with how Texas led the nation, etc, – which amazes me because I have this vague memory of Republicans being united against the Stimulus claiming that the government can not create jerbs.

Their ability to contradict themselves and not give a shit is just freaking awesome.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Last I looked, Mittens' claim had fallen to 6K, and Rick Flambe's claims had been proven to rest on Prez NIGRAH's stimulus $$$.

Callyson

Fifteen second ad, to air the week of April 15th:
"Mitt Romney is worth about a quarter of a million dollars. This week, he filed his taxes, paying a 15% rate. How much are you paying?"

carolinaswamp

That is a quarter of a BILLION, Callyson. A quarter of a BILLION.

Callyson

My bad…as I told BarackMyWorld above, so easy to lose track. Which is probably what Mittens will say when asked about showing his tax records…

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

No, mine for not reading the other forty bazillion comments and deleting this forthwith! Besides, a hundred million here, a hundred million there …

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

That's "quarter of a BILLION," darlz.

tessiee

And the Democrats will magically find their nutsacks and run this ad, right?

RavenRant

Maybe, somehow, the Democratic base could, I don't know, grab hold of said nutsacks, and gently but firmly guide them to do the right thing? (Gently is optional.)

not that Dewey

What's in YOUR wallet?

hagajim

Fuck you Mitt you fucking asshole!!!! There I feel better – not. Actually what I don't understand is why Mittens even wants to be Preznit. It's not like its the best job ever! Also, do we really want to vote for someone who hasn't had a job (except running for Preznit) in five fucking years?

Geminisunmars

If he weren't a douchnozzle to begin with, and had at least a couple of admirable characteristics (besides good hair), I wouldn't care how long he'd been unemployed.

MissTaken

Honestly I think his desire for the Presidency stems from his father's failed run in '68. Apparently people don't like it when you say you've been brainwashed.

Basically it's all about the son doing what the daddy couldn't. Sounds eerily similiar to Dubya going after Saddam, doesn't it?

Biff

His Daddy the Mexican National, you mean?

paris biltong

"Mr. Romney added: “And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”
In fact, in the most recent year, Mr. Romney made $374,327.62 in speaker’s fees, at an average of $41,592 per speech, according to his public financial disclosure reports."

When I speak, all I get is people telling me to shut up, which at least is tax exempt.

SorosBot

$374,327 is "not much", but teachers who get $40,000 a year and janitors making $25,000 are "overpaid". Fuck these people.

chicken_thief

*Church Lady-like voice* I see someone is just a little envious today….

RavenRant

Those are 'absurd' wages to Newt.

tessiee

""Mr. Romney added: “And then I get speaker’s fees from time to time, but not very much.”
In fact, in the most recent year, Mr. Romney made $374,327.62 in speaker’s fees, at an average of $41,592 per speech"

That probably really isn't much to someone in Mitt's income bracket. Even as I type this, he's probably got $41,593 between the couch cushions.

http://krisbunda.com/blog/index.php Designer_Rants

I think the American Mittens need to have more skin in the game.

Callyson

Oops…so easy to lose track. Which is probably what Mittens will say when asked about showing his tax records…

Think of how many jobs Romney has created in the media industry for people to write about how many jobs he eliminated in other industries.

http://johnnyzhivago.blogspot.com johnnyzhivago

Given that Mitt is almost the poster child for the kind of bullshit that has ruined this country, it seems more than fitting that he be elected to run it.

Monsieur_Grumpe

Can we put his head on a pike now? Pleeeeeeeeeaasssssse?

chicken_thief

And them queer soldiers!!! USA!!!! (but not the geyh) USA!!!! (but not the geyh) USA!!!! (but not the geyh)

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

Thanks for reminding me. Fuckers.

Troglodeity

Meanwhile, Seamus pays out the ass.

chicken_thief

No problem. Jes take a hose to that sumbitch and put 'im back in the crate.

owhatever

It's a great day in Southern Carolina! The olds beat the Mitbot to death with their canes and walkers, then run over his stinking corpse with Hoverounds. How dare he make money like a really rich person and then pay so little in taxes, also like a really rich person? If they were really rich, they would insist on paying their fair share of income taxes. Is this screwed up? Yeh.

sati_demise

Romney also said he didn't "make very much" in speaking fees.
He made over $350,000 in speaking fees.

Maybe Millionaire Mitt should freakin' check his sofa cushions.

DarwinianDemon

Oh what's 10 years salary for most Americans between friends?

lochnessmonster

When you think about it, guys like Romney don't need any more money and if they make even more being paid In stock options, why shouldn't they take advantage? (The Bastards)

Mort_Sinclair

**sniff** Okay, just because you're living in a surreal post-apocalyptic landscape doesn't make my suffering any less real. **sniff** And besides, I live in Massachusetts where we're supposed to have it a little bit together; I don't live in Cletisville, Texas, where the population is one big family–literally. *sniff*

RavenRant

Isn't he overdue to get outed for snorting meth off a rentboy's ass?

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

No shit, HistoriCat! You oughta be ashamed.

http://www.kalimao.blogspot.com MittBorg

RMONEY? His sins probably have more to do with $$$ than with anything so human as lust and dirty sexy cravings.